What counts as "exercise" for the green ring??

I'm new to this discussion because I just got my watch in December of 2016. I have my age and other personal detail in my watch. In the first few weeks of the year, my watch was calculating correctly and I was getting the credit in my exercise ring of which I was doing. All of the sudden when I was using my phone for my music, I no longer am getting any credit or movement in my ring even though my outdoor walk is accurately posting all the information. I read in here some people are using "Other" instead of the actual exercise they're doing. I'm going to try this and see what happens.

I experience similar results, and even it is not really clear from Apple how the parameters should be to record a 'true' exercise, i think there is a bug in the software.

I bike mostly, and experience almost every trip to be credited much shorter 'exercise' time than the full used time period.

looking at my data on my iPhone 6s it seems that if I make a short stop while biking, maybe looking at the scenery, the watch will stop counting the time used for 'training' but continue to count general time. In my example I got 46 minutes only out of 91 minutes total trip. looking at the graph for the green ring i see 4 vertical stripes then an empty space and then 3 vertical stripes (of varying hight, reflecting my efforts).

It is very inconvenient if one have to push button everytime you need to interrupt your exercise, therefor i call it a bug, and Apple should fix it. Otherwise its of no use and dixcurraging too, as you do not get your 'points' as expected.

I have tried "the other" option but then you may not get distance noted.

Kind regards

Palle, original apple watch.

This still seems to be an issue after all this time. I walked to the office today using the Outdoor Walk activity and the Activity app gave me credit for 9 minutes of exercise for a 30 minute walk. It doesn't really make any sense. I've also noticed that the active calorie count is much higher if an activity is selected as opposed to doing the same activity without using the Activity app. The Apple Watch/Activity app doesn't accurately account for calories burned from body movement unless the Activity app is on.

I've had my Apple Watch Series 2 for about 3 weeks. Now I'm being haunted by the dreaded exercise ring. What a disappointment to walk 4 miles and bike 6 miles and see 2 minutes registered in the exercise ring -- that just happened. I'm soaked in sweat and I check my watch - womp womp - notta. This is a new problem for me. The first two weeks everything worked fine, but the last several days the exercise ring has registered 1-3 minutes, and it doesn't matter what I do. I read a lot of the comments. Let me say, I'm not a fan of the suggestion to use the "other" setting for exercise. Why? It is a $400 watch made by Apple. Sorry, I'm expecting it to work flawlessly. I've been using Apple for everything, for years and years, and so does my entire family. So, no. And it doesn't matter anyway because I've been on the beach, not using the exercise app, but exercising more intensely than a "brisk walk," which is Apple's standard, and it still hasn't register anything - err. To find this problem on this forum, and see this has been an issue for years, and that it hasn't been fixed, is hugely disappointing.

I simply don't know what the Apple Watch is using as a base for Outdoor Walk but it obviously isn't GPS. The green ring has never accurately measured the amount of time I spend walking so I had to give up using it. The same for Indoor Run. I run outside several times a week for 10k or longer but the Apple Watch isn't using my outdoor averages for making calculations when I run indoors on a machine. It shows my pace to be a full three or four minutes per kilometer slower than my actual pace when I'm running outside and that throws off the calorie count and total distance for an indoor run. The calculations shown on the machine are consistent with my actual run stats when I'm outside but the Apple Watch is always off by more than a third for an indoor run.

Me too. When I first got my Apple Watch I struggled up six flights of stairs as fast as my arthritic legs would allow me and felt as though I was in danger of a heart attack afterwards. My watch didn't even notice and registered a zero. Yesterday I walked for a couple of hours, fairly slowly, with a walking stick. Afterwards I was shattered but my watch registered next to nothing. There is only one guaranteed method of getting that green circle to shift for me: to play a piece of piano music that has thundering semiquavers in the left hand!

If anyone knows how to get it to register more gentle exercise on the green circle, I might be more inclined to do some…

Same here

Sjat I sometimes do is chosing pulsetraining other

Then it will register pulse-speed

Sendt fra Palles iPhone 7 JetBlack

Den 16. jul. 2017 kl. 01.21 skrev Apple Support Communities Updates <discussions-updates@apple.com>:

Apple Support Communities

Jonathan UK has posted in the Using Apple Watch community.

What counts as "exercise" for the green ring??

Piano practice is less painful - and I don't think it's really a cheat because nothing else makes me feel the blood coursing through my veins so much!

Actually it's true that the reason I went for an Apple Watch was that I was fed up with only getting credit for flights of stairs where I was carrying my watch and was annoyed to find that the watch changed nothing in that regard.

However I am now addicted to it for other reasons. As a music teacher I find I can set alarms on my iPhone five minutes before the end of every lesson, mark them as silent and let my watch buzz them in to me. I am now prepared for every approaching lesson and manage to wrap up every outgoing lesson on time - all without any discernible interruption for my students. Brilliant!

I will be truly happy when some of the apps don't rely on my iPhone - for example, a guitar tuner shouldn't need to be operated from a 'phone when the watch has a built in microphone and speaker.

léonie wrote:

.. As it is now, we are kept in the dark.

If you would like to send feedback or suggestions to Apple, you can do so here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html

I was just looking for a similar answer to this as well.

Today I'm showing 9 minutes on my activity ring which is constructed from:

- about 6 minutes from when I took a quick walk to the shop, sure whatever...it's activity. Honestly 6 minutes is generous there 😉

- about 3 minutes from a 45 minute workout where I used the watch app to track 'Indoor Walking' and went on the treadmill. So the watch is fully aware I exercised for 45 minutes and I get 3 minutes towards my activity ring.

The workout app even says I did 0:47 Indoor Walk: 1.8 Mi, 129bpm avg heartrate alongside the 3 minutes of 'Exercise' it allowed me to have.

I think the stationary left arm may well be the key thing here.

As a test, I did a 15-minute walk on Sunday with just the watch (no phone) and everything got measured correctly, so we know it works sometimes.

The watch doesn't have GPS, so the only way it knows you're moving is via its internal accelerometer (the same sensor that notices when you raise your wrist). If you're doing steady pace, but not swinging the watch arm, it won't detect all of the motion very well.

Hi Alexroet,

From your post I understand you'd like to learn more about what the Exercise ring displays, along with getting it better calibrated to your activity level. First, outlined below is some information on what the Exercise ring displays, and second is a link with instructions to help calibrate your Apple Watch. Keep in mind as well, that wearing your Apple Watch more will help improve its accuracy.

The Exercise ring. This displays how many minutes of brisk activity you've completed towards a goal of 30 minutes. Every minute of movement that equals or exceeds a brisk walk, whether it’s working out or playing with your kids, counts toward your Exercise goal.

Apple Watch uses different kinds of information to calculate your overall activity and caloric burn. The more your Apple Watch learns about you, the more customized its calculations become.

For example, enter some data about yourself when you open Activity for the first time, like your age and weight. This will help Apple Watch make calculations just for you. Then wear your Apple Watch regularly so that the accuracy of your data continues to improve over time. Get the most customized caloric burn and overall activity readings by using your Workout app with your iPhone when you walk or run outside.

Use Activity on Apple Watch - Apple Support

Calibrating your Apple Watch for improved Workout and Activity accuracy - Apple Support

Have a great weekend,

Alex H.

The only time the watch uses GPS/HR sensors is when you specifically choose a Workout from the Workout app -- and I assume only an outdoor one for GPS. Otherwise, its only using the accelerometer and gyroscope to detect your motion and acceleration. Its similar to how the M7/M8 coprocessors and CoreMotion track your steps only calibrated to a swinging wrist.

A good way to understand this stuff to read about the CoreMotion framework. It describes how the sensors can be used to track your movement. My guess would be outdoor run vs walk is calibrated differently to assess your stride length which would be shorter in a walk...and I am sure other complex calculations. If you can pre-limit the exercise for the watch, it probably helps it make it more accurate since it can more finitely determine the measurements if it can cut out the noise. It doesn't surprise me run would give you more as i am guessing the baseline calculations may start from a higher point. Perhaps just choose Other as that will not preset it. Then see how it attempts to figure out your exercise...

While it should be clarified, the exercise ring is kind of pointless. Its really just a measure of exertion and that will show up in a higher rate of calorie burn. The Move ring is the best measure of your activity. Getting 30 mins of exercise according to the AW but missing your Move by 100 cals is prob not as beneficial as going over your Move by 100 and hitting only 10 on the exercise.